A/N: This chapter sucks more than anything so I have to upload it along with the next one; not that it stands as some form of compensation.

Chapter XX: Deliverance

It's really regrettable that humans have such imperfect means of communication. How do I plan to put a stop to this? It doesn't seem like my misgivings are sending much signals out there. The fact is, with the way things are going, there's no way I can make him stop without spoiling something; the mood for instance. Needless to even mention, I can't put up with my hypocrisy a minute longer. It annoys me that a stupid thing should bother me at a time like this.

I break away, against which he doesn't rebel. Upon learning he isn't entirely hostile against the idea of cutting the activity before it even finishes in a natural path, I feel somehow relieved. He bolts upright on his knees, without showing half a sign of intending to pull away. Actually, he isn't showing anything at all that can be associated with disapproval or approval.

"Something wrong?" he asks.

"N—nothing."

"Really?" he asks, this time with a nasty grin. If I hadn't gone used to his peculiar remarks, I'd be in a terrible tongue-tie at this point.

"Don't start."

"Sheesh. Don't you like it?"

One of these days, I'll find a way to answer that without scuffling about for my voice. In the meantime, all I can say is,

"It's not a question of wanting it; it's a question of its being right and wrong."

"But you said there was nothing wrong." He replies, with the last word given a special stress.

"So to speak. Grimmjow, I don't know what in hell got into me, and it's not like you know either." I answer, fully aware that the last thing I can get a hold of is certainty.

He gets off me and casts his body beside mine.

"Oh sure, I know. It means you find a better kisser in me than Ulquiorra."

I don't know how to answer that, let alone figure how he came up with that. But then I'm starting to remember that he has superhuman powers; that is, to hear people's voices from afar. However, that still doesn't answer how he guessed it right that I indeed kissed his brother. I stare at him for lack of a proper response, and, unless my eyes are malfunctioning, he's grinning again.

"What's so fucking funny?"

"You look as though you've just choked on something. Moving on, am I a better kisser than he is?"

There appears to be no limit to how wicked he can get. For all I know, I'd be pretty much dead before he found himself devoid of malignity. Amidst these points, may I add that my tolerance for this sort of things can be explained by nothing at the moment?

Out of nowhere, I ask, "Are you used to this?"

At this particular instant, which is to last for only a second, his grin loosens up,

"What?"

"This."

"Making out?"

"That's not exactly the term I have in mind but, yeah, that's what I'm referring too."

He poises himself to speak up, eyes me with much suspicion, and answers half-heartedly,

"I've done it before, alright-once upon an unpleasant era."

This pitches me up to a whole new level of curiosity. I try to avert his gaze, perhaps to pretend that I don't care as much… simply to conceal the fact that I am really this interested.

"Tell me."

"You wish."

"Well then, I'd like to call this a night."

"People of my kind start their day at night."

"So how many times have you done things of this sort?"

"You are not asking me that."

To begin with, it would be futile effort to try to ask it without indiscretion. He should at least know that.

"Come on now. Knock it off with being a stick in the mud already. Details, man."

He scowls. Ordinarily, I wouldn't go as far as being this much of a gossip whore even if so much of my curiosity would be satiated. However, I also have to keep in mind that this dude has seen life through immortal eyes. He sighs before commencing,

"We all have had rough years, because life is not always on the bright side, or at least it's not always balanced in a nice equilibrium. It was around in the Victorian Era, when I was living alone as I always had in a not-so-nice flat somewhere in Brussels, when I started to descend from grade to grade of wretchedness. I was already a vampire then, though very young in our reckoning. So that was, what, around a couple of centuries ago, wasn't it? I was only a hundred years old then. I was trying to push things to conclusion, trying to figure out how long I could endure living like that, to just drift about, unaware of time. You have to understand and see it as it is; that it was not very different from living a thoughtless and inactive life, far from being a struggle with fatality. You see, life then was so devoid of color, especially for me who had always needed a regular source of entertainment. I couldn't stand society and everything it exacted. On top of the shit-pile, that era was so preposterous; so pretentious and gaudy were the people that I wouldn't have suffered the slightest tinge of remorse had I bled the population dry. The only comfort I could find was confined in women. It wasn't difficult for me, considering their mentality was as such that they unconsciously believed that beauty justified successes and excused failures. And I was, and still am, a very handsome creature. Going back, night after night I would put to bed nameless maidens whose faces I can no longer recall, and in more occasions than none I would feast on more than what carnal pleasure their flesh had to offer. Subsequently, minor complications arose from the tedious task of disposing their bodies. But I couldn't contain my bloodlust. The sex and the pleasure I could abstain from, but the thirst I couldn't subdue. So there, in the course of my life I have slain and deflowered maidens, whose number can't be accounted for by all our fingers combined."

My mind can just lapse into darkness for a year or forever. I did foresee that his history would sound very similar to this, but only now do I realize how unprepared I am for it. I mark the heaviness in my chest, thereby making a sudden movement which isn't at all necessary to prove a point. I know exactly nothing of what to say.

"All those decades you were living alone?"

"Before that ugly stage I was living with Sousuke, Halibel, and Scheiffer. They seemed like a happy family."

"So it was Dr. Aizen who created you?"

"Yeah."

"Was there any particular reason why he did that?"

He heaves a sigh which sounded very much like a dreary echo. Inching in closer to me, he answers, his voice made dismal by the expression that accompanies it,

"If my calculations serve me right, I was born before the Georgian period. At that time, there wasn't anything much from life for me to extract. I was then a twenty-year old bloke, and will remain so even to this day and in so long as I shall survive, who was living with his biological parents. One winter, my father was introduced to this wealthy gentleman who came into town to acquaint the ignorant population to certain oriental products. It turned out that the dude was something of a damn merchant who traveled over lands and seas to do business around the globe. The gentleman was none other than Sousuke, who was going around under a name befitting his appearance. Apart from all these happenings, I wanted to travel the world. In life, I was a very good-looking dude, no questions about that, but nothing seemed to interest me besides your usual unattainable stuff, such as parrying with pirates and shit, conquering virgin lands, and unraveling the geographical wonders. I mean, what would I be other than a handsome prick who liked to dream big? So I snuck out of our mansion—my father was a viscount of some sort—to never return or set foot to my native town again. I ambushed Sousuke in this inn he was staying in. And in there ensued a negotiation that would last for hours unnumbered, a discussion that would be imprinted in my mind for all time. He said he'd agree to take me with him in exchange for my life. I didn't exactly know what it meant—not that he had been direct in telling the truth—, but he wouldn't permit another question. Of course, I never considered it as anything equivalent to my very soul. I thought it was just a pledge of a lifetime of service. So I nodded. The next thing I knew was I was looking at a real set of fangs."

"D—d'you regret it? Did you ever?"

"I know best how many times I cursed him in the first years of my transformation."

I am exhorted to sympathize, but am afraid it would convey a different meaning.

"I—I suppose it took you long years to adapt to it. So, after that, you and Dr. Aizen started to live together, didn't you?"

"For several years. In time the voyages exhausted the shit out of me. And I couldn't stand Scheiffer who had then just arrived from somewhere. He was older than me by half a century. So I had to break away and search for my own meaning out there."

"But all this, does it mean you have never loved before?"

He stares at me, looking as though he has never seen anything like me before now nor has the word 'love' ever been personally familiar to him.

"You mean, before you? Nah. I had more sense than to fall recklessly, stupidly."

"…"

"So, Kurosaki, will you go away with me tomorrow?"

Promptly, tension makes its way to me. I cock my head up and sit up to level with him.

"I don't think it's a good idea. Maybe we should go to the School Dance after all."

"Can't you stray from your pattern once in a while?"

We stare at each other in silence. I cannot imagine the extent to which I have to answer this truthfully without betraying myself with what I badly need to hide. I can't stay with him for a day. I just can't give him that, lest temptation masters me. In the end, honesty prevails…

"I can't—dammit—I want this done slowly. You and me."

He smiles at this. In this minute, so much does he resemble the idea of evil itself that I reckon only a few can equal him in terms of strength, much less surpass him.

"I'm a generous negotiator. If you say you can't come with me, then I guess I'll have to put up with that."

There's not a hint of generosity, of which he makes so blatant a claim, in his manner of speaking. In the least, it's all damn scheming and fishy in a diabolical way. I study him, neither able nor willing to understand how he is able to draw me into him just like this. I can vaguely rationalize my situation and visualize what precisely a good natured person would do or think at a time like this. This seems wrong. But wrong or right, I let it happen, for no further validation and establishment of its wrongness or righteousness can make me resist him. Lame, I know.

He kisses me, in a passage of time which seems to stretch to infinity. When it's all over he hops off my bed, and with a wink he disappears into the night.

...

I simply cannot assert in words how stupid this is gonna be. Basically, I can't believe what I'm about to do. Or I refuse to. And as if this stupidity can't ramp up any steeper, my sisters and dad are gawking at me as I skip threads down the stairs.

"Son, you're looking too handsome tonight. Be sure to only attract enough attention." Dad comments, browsing the entirety of my attire from head to foot.

I don't know how I got pitched inside this coat and tie suit just in time for the dance tonight. I do know, however, why I'm in it. Earlier today, some bloke of a vampire, whose name is Grimmjow, took up the responsibility of informing my dad that some sort of a pseudo-prom would be held in the school this evening. I have not the slightest inkling on how well their conversation went, but I'm pretty sure of two things: that dad, in a sudden surfeit of panic, had sped off the nearest mall and the next thing I knew was that he was waving this neat and costly-looking formal attire in my face. I informed him, with a menacing glare at Grimmjow, that I didn't have a freakin' partner for the freakin' event. But no sooner than dad's disappointment became manifest did Grimmjow butt in and told dad with avoidant eyes that he had managed to arrange a last-minute date for me.

Maybe I should've blurted out in a less pompous way the words: "Fuck this, Grimmjow." Maybe the bastard should've received the kick he needed when he started talking to dad in a voice that could caress you if you heard it. Maybe this is all a part of this one sick joke that awaits recognition. But, whichever of these maybe's is the most accurate one, I am once again ensnared into whatever plan he wishes to undertake.

In almost no time, we hear the doorbell chime. Yuzu, in a fit of unexplainable delight, rushes forward the door to entertain inside whoever the fuck it was at the door.

"Come in, come in." I hear my sister hail.

I spin around to learn of the sight at the doorway. What I'm seeing is disarming in all aspects.

Grimmjow is at the doorway, all the notable physical qualities in him made more absolute by his attire and his hairdo. A few feet beside him is Ulquiorra, looking thoroughly displeased, as if trying to disguise himself into a convention to which he can't adapt even given the best of props. And now the sight that leaves me with nothing less than a mouth slightly parted asunder: Their sister, Neliel, is with them. I mean, I can apply all the exaggerations I can imagine and still they wouldn't depart from the truth by more than a damn inch. She's had her hair straightened and reduced in length by several inches, giving her a more mature look—

"Kurosaki, meet your dance partner for tonight." Grimmjow says, gesturing at his sister.

TBC